By justed

"An amnesty that could involve millions of kids submitting and signing legal documents that plead themselves guilty to the Recording Industry Association of America may not be the best approach to achieving a balance between protecting copyright laws and punishing those who violate those laws."

US senator Norm Coleman, chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs' permanent subcommittee on investigations, quoted in the Philadelphia Inquirer's Music industry sues over downloads

Wow, I think Captain Obvious here just made the cover of the next issue of Duh! Magazine.

Hey, at least he knows what he's talking about.

Random Thoughts from a Poet:

Title: A new Boycott-RIAA tagline

R.I.A.A.
Go Away-way

i think norm has been checking up on are site hear since wear the onlys ones talking about this issue really maybe norm is a poster so be nice :0P

i mean wear the only ones covering this issue fairly

I agree with koemoe. My local news did a piece on this "amnesty" last night, and blatanly ENCOURAGED people to accept it. They didn't say seek legal council, or research, they said "if you are a downloader of music, you should go to this site for an amnesty from legal action." Can you say "BIASED?"

Isnt it illegal to have minors send in documents like that?

Mr. Coleman, by making that statement, has certainly has earned even more respect from me, than he had before (which rose immediately as soon as he announced hearings were to be held). He's a lawyer too, and he KNOWS this is bad news, and is trying to warn people.

Norm, you have my vote and I don't
even live where you are !

I have a question ?? is this legal????

The industry's strategy will be to threaten accused pirates with the stick of crippling penalties -- then offer the carrot of relatively mild settlements. Consider four cases the RIAA brought in April against college kids who were running miniature Napster-style music services. The suits were dropped for sums from $12,000 to $17,500 and written pledges to cease unlawful file-sharing. Anybody rejecting the offer was warned that the price of settling would increase if capitulation didn't come swiftly. An attorney who defended one college student says music lawyers threatened to boost the cost of a deal to approximately $50,000 if he filed an answer in court.

you can find the article hear

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2003/tc20030829_5018_tc078.htm

woodhead:

Here's some of the reasons I give minors to think a whole bunch before this Sham-nesty thing.

Firstly, this "amnesty" thing is basically making a contract.

If minors are involved:
Most minors don't know they have a constitutional protection against making self incriminating statements or statements of admission of guilt made outside or without the assistance of counsel.

This "amnesty" seems to be a thinly veiled attempt at offer of agreement or contract...
It has the three elements of offer, acceptance, and consideration.
Offer- RIAA offers a statement for folks to notarize and fill out. Acceptance, they download, fill it out,
and send it in. Consideration, RIAA promises not to
sue them.

But there's a rub.

If the "offender" is a minor, a minor cannot make enter into a contract for anything but the necessities of life
such as food and shelter.

Any attempt at contract, would be disallowed by any court. Since there is no contract, then the RIAA
would not be held by the terms, and they would have your notarized confession of wrongdoing and a self
audit of all your downloading crimes, and with no contract, if you are a minor, they could still sue.

For adults:
Taking advantage of this "offer"
amounts to you giving a signed confession of breaking the law, into the hands of a lawyer who doesn't like you anyway. They already will have half a mugshot. This affidavit will be admissable in any court, and could be shown to a grand jury.

1) The RIAA could immediately send this to the FBI, DOJ, and every state attorney and local district attorney.

2)1) If you had songs worth 1000 dollars on your drive for 180 days, and if you count one song=buying one album to get it, you could have as little as 50 files to be guilty, you can be charged with violation of the Net Act, and be sent to prison for 3 years, lose all computers,modems, etc., and pay other fines.

3) The RIAA may say THEY will not sue you, but that may only apply to the RIAA. They may turn around and say, we didn't say the record label wouldn't or the artist wouldn't. And if your "confession" happens to list songs not owned by RIAA artists, they could send your confession to the people who do own the song.

4) Once sent, you cannot take it back.

5) They may , reasonably, claim the right to come pay you a visit and audit your computers to make sure you complied, and are still in compliance (regular visits from the RIAA to your house, man, if you still want to sign with that image in your head, I don't know what to say).

The sad thing, is that only the most naive and honest people would consider this ploy, and that makes this attempt at victimization all the more egregious!

JUST SAY NO TO THE "SHAM-NESTY"

Is this some kind of trick, as in if you tell the truth- yu won't get into trouble? We need to protect our kids and our communities from this type of privacy invasion and get the word out NOT to fall for this trap that makes it even easier for them to get what they want.

Random Thoughts from a Poet:

Title: COPPA

The RIAA filed a lawsuit against a 12 year old girl. Isn't gathering information about children under 13 years of age online a felony under the COPPA?

If Norm Coleman does come to this site, I want him to know that I appreciate his courage to stand against convention and his fellow Senators on a very important issue that is being underplayed. I'm sure i'm not the only one that feels this way.

Note on 'A New Boycott-RIAA Tagline:
Anyone remember 'PLA go away'?

Wonderful, so now we're dealing with a "company" (or should that be REGIME?) which cannot comprehend and use English in a proper manner. Fantastic. As they say, you can't sit down and do/knw nothing unless you're at the top.

About this contract, doesn't the Fifth Amendment protect against making self-incriminating statements? (I'm British, but I know this because it came up in a trivia game the other day. I think I remembered rightly).

Huh... what state is he a senator for, now? He gets my vote, for publically admitting how dangerous the 'amnesty' idea can be to the unsuspecting, the naive, and the terminally honest. I know, many of you might be thinking that his comments are unnecessary, just because WE figured it out. But consider, not every person in the U.S. has an I.Q. of 100. Or even 80. There's a REASON why the instructions on the back of a shampoo bottle say 'Pour, lather, rinse, repeat'. Because some people really ARE sheep sometimes.

And it seems to me, that the RIAA want lambchops for dinner.

I undestand that code, but I waas refeering to wa the clip of the article thaat I posted, the part about settiling and what disturbs me is if you a multibillion dollar company sueing on grounds it cant lose then why try to settle out of court, for a lesser amount, but if you answer in court we will sue for 50,000 dollars, and my question is this seems like intimedation and a way to try to keep you from going before a Judge and due process for if their case is so solid why keep it out of a court room?????
If you know you can win why settle out of court???? The only time you realy see this is when the Party filing may not belive that they can actually win in a court room. Maybe I am seeing to much into this but it did make me wonder. I placed a link under that post
I don't know it just seemed strange to me.

Oh and the amnesty thing is a crock of
s*** you have my word on that

woodhead...darn page is cutting off words on the right side of the page
on your message, so it was hard to
read. But I can tell you why they
would offer to settle out of court
even if they thought they would win.
Number one, if you have a jury, you
never know you will win. They could
do a "jury nullification" and say
the defendant is not wrong, just
because they don't like the plaintiff
or don't agree with the law. They are
not supposed to do a jury nullification
but it happens. Number two, settling
out of court is MUCH cheaper for the
plaintiff, because lawyers cost an
arm and a leg. Expert witnesses
cost a lot more, and even if you
win, the other side can appeal
and drag it out, and even have
your award from a jury reduced
or even thrown out (it happens).
Settling gives the plaintiff
a sure amount, reduces their
costs, cuts time, etc.

silencethepoet- good thought, but under COPPA, (2) OPERATOR.—The "term "operator"—

(A) means any person who operates a website located on the Internet or an online service and who collects or maintains personal information from or about the users of or visitors to such website or online service, or on whose behalf such information is collected or maintained, where such website or online service is operated for commercial purposes, including any person offering products or services for sale through that website or online service, involving commerce—"

and I think that the toadies working for the RIAA which collected the "evidence" would not fall under the term "operator" since they did not own kazaa.com or the kazaa service.

But, I commend you on knowing about that law, few people know about it in the lay public.
~code

FRED says parents should settle!

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/09/09/MN81934.DTL

PARENTS' LIABILITY UNCLEAR
Attorneys specializing in copyright law said that it's unclear whether parents can be held liable for their children's use of their Internet service accounts. That depends on such details as the wording of the legal agreement the account holder clicked on when signing up for the Internet service. How much parents knew about their children's activities may also be an important factor.

Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney who specializes in intellectual property for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said: "Although there are some interesting legal issues in there, it would be a rare parent who would not take the bullet for their child."

Von Lohmann's group is trying organize pro bono defense attorneys for individuals targeted by the suits. He predicted that many will try to negotiate settlements, a resolution that the record companies have said they're open to.

"The vast majority of people will find that the only economical thing to do is to settle," von Lohmann said. "I don't think many of these will lead to full-blown courtroom fights -- most people are going to need help bargaining, not fighting."

He continued: "It would be pretty hard to defend. But we've seen in the past that the recording industry makes a lot of mistakes."

The penalty for copyright infringement ranges from $750 to $150,000 per violation. The recording companies said Monday that some defendants have already reached preliminary settlements for an average of $3,000 each.

Beansprout - The Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination applies only in custodial investigations, that is, your freedom has been restricted by the State in a substantial way. In order to confess in such a situation, you must knowingly and willingly waive that right. The rationale behind the 5th Amendment and the exclusionary rule (that prevents such confessions to be admitted into trial as evidence) is to prevent overzealous State agents from coercing confessions from suspects/defendants. Since the RIAA "Confession" you make is outside a custodial investigation situation, it will not protect anyone.

click on technology Sfgate.com

It's a small relief to hear that there is at least one reasonable politician out there who, if not understands, then at least sympathizes, with the average citizen's plight. I give Senator Coleman major props for his stance. Having read the RIAA finally suing 261 individuals, among them an elderly man and a 12-year-old girl, I can't sit around anymore. I've been reading this site for a long time before this first post, and I think it's time I do something about it.

Anyone know what stances the California Senators, Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer are taking on the P2P issue? It's good to have a little background of that before I write to them of my absolute outrage regarding what the RIAA is doing.

This site needs to change, seems like many people joined the movement since they heard who was the first to be sued...

The reason they're offering to settle out of court is out of 'consideration' to us. They're a bunch of patronizing s.o.b.s, who think we have the collective intelligence of a turnip. And the fact that we've given them the financial power to harass us and attempt to intimidate us, kind of makes me wonder about the group intelligence of the average consumer, too.

What amazes me is, WE gave them their power, we paid for their products. I've said this to friends, and I'll say it here: the drops in sales have NOTHING to do with the file-sharing. It has to do with the quality of the products they're selling. Let's face it... music on the whole in the last three years has been slowly but steadily going downhill. They want to increase sales? They should treat their artists with a little more respect, and produce better music (insert glare at Zomba for the crap they put BSB through which lead to the Boys filing suit against THEM!).

As I understand it, one of the rights we as human beings have, is the right of free will and choice. The power TO choose. And now they're trying to take away our power to choose what we listen to, and they're trying to bankrupt us into subserviance to what they want us to buy. What about people who are on fixed incomes, who are fans? For me, I'm on a tight budget... and sometimes, file-sharing is the only way I can hear a couple songs from an artist I like, to help me decide which CDs I'd like to invest my money in buying.

I don't download for profit... hell, everything I download pretty much stays on my computer simply because it's convenient instead of fishing through my CD collection every few minutes to change to a different song. As well as helps me cherish memories, of out of print stuff I used to listen to as a boy.

And now the RIAA wants to take this away from us. Yes, there are people who trade files... but how many file sharers, actually make any money off the file-sharing? I know I haven't. I've only gained a greater respect for the artists who've written truly beautiful music that I enjoy. Not to mention saved myself a $h!tload of money, when my older CDs and tapes have worn out from constant use.....

And yes, nine times out of ten, the quality isn't cd perfect. That's fine, if I wanted the cd I'd go buy it. But not now. The cost is too high for my tastes. The CDs that the RIAA 'protects', is being paid for in the destruction and bankruptcy of fellow consumers, now. I cannot in good conscience support them, as much as I may love many of the artists under their 'collective'.

So I suppose from here on in, I will have to buy cds from the bargain racks or directly at concerts. But NEVER AGAIN, will I buy a RIAA-sponsored cd through retail stores. Ethically, it leaves a foul taste in my mouth.

This Really sucks! So they just get everybody to admit they are pirates, pay their attorneys and the RIAA goes on its merry way!

The RIAA doesn't have a valid case. I feel that they are doing this amnesty deal so that they can avoid going to court. When these some of these 200+ lawsuits go to court and the RIAA loses, the RIAA's whole tactic of "sue 'em all" will be out the window. They are gathering information from the people that agree to the amnesty deal. They probably will not sue someone who agrees to the deal, but they can just as easily hand it over to the authorities. And with a notarized statement stating that you did it, there would be no way of avoiding some kind of punishment from the judicial system. Plus, if they have your information, they can do a lot of bad things with it.

It is kind of like stealing a car. If a theif stole a car, and the owner of the car issued a statement in the newspaper that they wouldn't take the theif to court as long as they return the car and give the owner their name and address and a written statement that he/she stole the car. Then when the theif returns the car, the police are waiting and the theif is brought up on charges of grand theft auto. Technically, the owner of the car didn't take the theif to court. And with a written testimony that the theif did steal the car, there is no contest that the theif was guilty. Same ploy here with the amnesty deal.
My advice to anyone thinking to taking the amnesty deal. Don't do it.

When a new P2P is released with complete anonymity. The RIAA can use the all ready gathered info and strike first at those users. The RIAA will raid the user's computer to see if the user is keeping up with the amnesty deal. I could be completely off the mark here, but bad things can happen if you divulge your info to the wrong hands.

The suits targeted individuals who made songs available to others online. Those who merely downloaded songs without sharing were not targets, nor were college campuses, according to the RIAA


hmmm what about mit???

This is what they RRIA wants! to get the people to admit they are criminals, and then it makes them look good when they go to lobby for some more laws to back up the out dated copy right laws.

Then they can say they have all these confessions behind them to persue more of their legal angles to be used aganist future file sharing.

What do we get? To pay lawyers to bargin for us? So in the end we get nothing.

im interested to see if anyone out of the 250 some odd people the riaa is suing will show some courage and fight it out in court. what we REALLY need in order to be able to win court cases with the riaa is precedence. this sort of case to my knowledge has never happened before this year were actual individuals instead of companies have been targeted.
if were going to see any number of people fighting this in court some one needs to establish a defense that works (like insanity in a murder case) untill that happens alot of people are probebly going to settle out of court on thier own accord and on reccomendation of the attourneys

wow, this site has gotten busy, 6-8 posts a day and people posting in the forums every minute...

wow, this site has gotten busy, 6-8 posts a day and people posting in the forums every minute...

wow, this site has gotten busy, 6-8 posts a day and people posting in the forums every minute...

I'm getting a very gloomy feeling about this whole thing, since i read this EFF attorney's statement. i'm not going aganist what he is saying, because you don't have much of a choice being a lower income or even middle class American.

I think I see through the veil of the RIAA's dirty way of thinking and it bugs the crap out of me.

So much money power! and to think "we as consumers" paid to put them where they are. Its so sad. And all we want to do is listen to the art of music. there's always someone or something that wants to put chains on what should be free!

Code
Thanks for the info, but I still sayit seems to me to be a little sneaky, if you want me to pay 3000 dollars why not sue me for that in stead of
"if you do not settle out of court, we will not only sue you for the 3000 but will tack on another 47,000 since you wanted to go to court' seems like intimidation to me, and should not be allowed. Maybe I am just wishing that the law was actually here to protect me as a consumer and a citizen of this country.

You know, we ought to Thank the R.I.A.A.

Everytime they pull something like this, more people join the revolution. They're supplying us with ammunition and people to use against them. So lets thank them for making their end more swifter.

After everthing I read here to day....and there have been some great comments from some darn smart people! I now realize that this boycott will be the most important boycott ever waged in this country! It is not just the music, but it is our time to be heard ! I just hope that it will blossom and bare the fruit we need to bring down this greedy empire.

Well isp-privacy
If they sue me witch they wont, I stoped file sharing before the "Deadline" but if by chance they do I will take it all the way to court. I have nothing now and what can they take??? Garnish my measly little paycheck yea right

Oh and sorry, hello to all new comers it is nice to see you here.

VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE

Children of the RIAA. (Like Children of the Corn)

I did a search for brianna and RIAA. I didn't get what I wanted, but I found this (mostly) disgusting MTV propaganda floating around. It seems like most of these kids are the children of the RIAA.

http://www.mtv.com/news/youtellus/topics/non_artist_topics/file_sharing/063003.jhtml

Ok links never work for me, so I am gonna tell u now, click the link, and then delete the lil "br" at the end.

Woodhead....I'll bet they would like to sue all of us who have expressed our thoughts and comments on this site!
And take our right to free speech away.

isp-privacy....lol..and I thought old Big Lips Sherman was going to invite me to the RIAA Christmas party 'cause I do so much free PR about them...
my hopes are dashed...LOLOLOL
ROFL......

They will never get all of us. And it the end We will win.

P2P forever RIAA Never!

nyer82......yea I agree MTV is disgusting! I hope it goes down along side of the big floating turd to the depths of the cesspool they emerged from!

woodhead = it's common in cases where the plaintiff (or prosecutor) thinks they are going to win, to try to settle out of court for a sure win, instead of an iffy court decision.
That's why they work plea deals with people they think they can convict.
Ya gotta understand, most lawyers I
know personally, are very lazy. They
don't want to spend the time to try
a case if they can get a pretty good
chunk of change without going to
trial. It's the way the law game
is played in the US of A.

LOL CODE FAH RAH RAH RAH!

Well..Well...the child molesting RIAA takes it's first victim..a 12 year-old girl living in the projects. They made her pay 2000 bucks.
I hope you are proud RIAA...now you have really fired up more people who are going to join the boycott. Maybe while you are suing in courtroom A, we can watch your bankruptcy proceedings in courtroom B.
You are going down now.

Achaye, Boxer and Feinstein have both accepted money from these groups so I do not think they would be anything but supportive of them. Check out opensecrets.org under media to see who they have been paying off. All the media groups heavily increased their spending on congressional support and lobbying in the 2002 cycle.

Random Thoughts from a Poet:

Title: Various

Good point on the COPPA CodeWarrior. I'm sure the law could be used against them, though. It would just take a clever lawyer with enough motivation to do so.

I read a few minutes ago on wired news that year to date CD sales were down 6.1% on July 15th, which is the date they announced this campaign of evil. But since then it has accelerated 54%. Talk about effective way to loose buissiness. If they made 20 million a day, that would be a 10 million loss. I'm sure this number is lower than reality, but just for example.

By The Way the 12 year old girls case was settled:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArt
icle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3416536

it states in one of the articles, that the court loss may not be charged off in a bankruptcy. How is the bankruptcy of the riaa going to effect these cases?

Hey listen, the Internet is morphing into a golorified shopping mall. With sales tax included.

Heck, soon in addition to I-tunes , you will have Amazon-tunes, Yahoo-tunes, maybe even RIaa-tunes (they would specialize in the acclaimed works of Orrin Hatch, Such as his rendition of "I got you babe").

Such a lovely vision, It will be just like Clearchannel radio today, like our selections or nothing...

Right now no one has the money or stones to stand toe to toe with these guys. They are running rampant all over everything.

We need the likes of deep pocketed web pioneers like Paul Allen, Mark Cuban, or the like on our side. They have enough money to market alternatives to what the RIAA want the public to do.

Otherwise Music on the web will be no better than Clearchannel or Ticketmaster (Pay us lots of money, like what you get).

Has anyboby read or heard anything out of Mr. Brainbowls the new CEO of the RIAA? I was wondering what his position was going to be on all this?

I wonder why the ACLU has not gotten into this fray?

If someone has the money to take this to the supreme court (which could take 10 years) I wonder if they will rule on the side of privacy? Abortion is legal because of the women's right to privacy. Should be interesting if one of these lawsuits goes that far.

isp-privacy
Woodhead....I'll bet they would like to sue all of us who have expressed our thoughts and comments on this site!
And take our right to free speech away

you got that right my friend, they would love nothing better than to strip us of oue right to free speech.

Code
woodhead = it's common in cases where the plaintiff (or prosecutor) thinks they are going to win, to try to settle out of court for a sure win, instead of an iffy court decision.
I think I would take my chances in court with a group of my peers before giving in to these ba******. Why dont people see that you may actually have a case with the iv amendment. The RIAA is spouting that the iv amendment does not apply to private parties, but I beg to differ and if you are in a court room with your peers they probably would agree with you, especially after what has happened over the past couple of days. Any one else??????

This is from the timesdaily.com,
and I thought it was great :

"During a Senate Judiciary Hearing Tuesday, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., alluded to whether the industry wasn't going too far while questioning Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America.

"Are you headed to junior high schools to round up the usual suspects?" Durbin asked Sherman.

Sherman told Durbin the industry is merely trying to get the message across that sharing music is illegal and that people may be caught."

go i will never buy another cd from any riaa member even if they leave that org.and if those the register has the riaa settlement of $2,000 from a low income 12year old girl how low will they members have other products lines we should start boycotting them also. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/32740.html new york post http://nypost.com/news/regionalnews/5349.htm
"The law says no lawsuit may be brought that alleges copyright infringement based on the "noncommercial use by a consumer of such a (digital audio recording device) or medium for making digital musical recordings." The latest generation of multimedia PCs that are equipped with CD and DVD burners may qualify as a digital audio recording device, the thinking goes, which would mean the AHRA applies. "cnet

copy and paste dilemma sorry about it but you get the drift

at $150,000 per song
at 2000 songs
thats a $300,000,000 fine
who is ever gonna be able to pay that
if everyone who should be sued got sued that would be 60 million "americans" in more than $1,000,000 debt
this would completly ruin peopls live when their houses get repossesd their will be 60 million "more" homeless americans
who woulnt want to commit suicide after getting a $300,000,000 fine???

i guess you could consider it population control
riaa is gonna be rich out their ass becaust the artists arnt gonna see a penny of it
i do feel bad for some of the artists in this whole mess but if they got all the mone everyone else (record producers riaa ect. you name it) rapes out of them how could they complain

i guess i just dont see how this is gonna work

p.s. good luck to brianna lahara and her family and everyone els gettin sued

Anybody rejecting the offer was warned that the price of settling would increase if capitulation didn't come swiftly. An attorney who defended one college student says music lawyers threatened to boost the cost of a deal to approximately $50,000 if he filed an answer in court.

Slimey bas*****
take me to court damnit

It's an old Metallica song (recall that Metallica is one of the bands vocally backing the RIAA):

Halls of justice painted green
Money talking
Power wolves beset your door
Hear them stalking
Soon you’ll please their appetite
They devour
Hammer of justice crushes you
Overpower
above saw it on some web site
lawyer in cal sues riaa over amnesty
http://www.techfirm.com/Parke-RIAA%20Complaint.pdf

Please e-mail a link to http://www.geocities.com/riaassholes to anyone and everyone you know.

Apologies for the ads on the page, but a free website was a necessity (go there and you'll understand why).

Sorry forthis late post, butI feel you should read this

To all boycotters

We have a LOT of new people who are coming to this site, and a lot that are scared I am sure.
We need to embrace these folks and let them know that they are not alone, and some of us were
in thier shoes not to long ago. ( like me)
So when you see some one in the forum who has questions, please stop by and talk with them, or maybe even give a cyber huge when you can, we are not only fighting for our rights but the rights of the ones who are afraid to speak up. We as a group have started something, and we need to show that we are not like big corporations and the little guy doesn't matter for we are the little guys who are making a stand

BOYCOTT RIAA

EDUCATE REGISTER and VOTE

hawk7771
is this for real?????
have to know, and I hope it is

Lotta talk about boycotts. I haven't bought a CD in over a year. If folks are serious about boycotting, then:

NO MORE CDs THROUGH THE REST OF THE YEAR.

Let's give the RIAA something to really cry about when their bottom line bottoms out by New Year's. Time to step things up and...

put the RIAA where it belongs. In a grave. BOYCOTT.

I've been here for awhile just reading and posting my thoughts evey now and then. I am posting again b/c this whole RIAA is really pissing me off. We keep talking about how to stop them and what not. It's real simple. We need hackers at this time. If people are getting so pissed why not work on attacking the RIAA through hacking. I would have been all over that along time ago, if I knew the first thing about programing. Time to stop talking and start acting >

woodhead
the one from cnet?

http://rss.com.com/2100-1027-5073312.html?tag=nl cnet article

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap10.html woodhead read sec 1008 of the AHRA

I am posting this here too...

A editorial where he says he will never buy another cd

http://bbsnews.net/bw2003-09-10.html

riaaasshole heh (sorry..that name makes me laugh)...maybe you should put a paypal button on your site so people can contribute directly to a fund..and have it go to the families directly. I know that many sites do this...Or maybe try www.amazon.com too. The link to paypal is www.paypal.com

Code.. you seem to be doing some legal homework. I've got an idea, and I'm doing some research as well, but I think some help will be needed. Any ideas on the validity of a class action suit against the RIAA? I'm crunching the numbers and looking up precedent, but it LOOKS like if enough of us got together, we could sue under some common theme, like creating a hostile legal environment (I know, the wording is vague, but the idea is there). Possibly we could sue the RIAA for abuse of DMCA or something of that nature? Maybe EFF or someone else would "donate" some legal counsel?? All I've got right now is a few ideas and some google searches. I think this could work, but even if it failed, it would be a great distraction from the lawsuits that have been filed AND serve as a very public notice to the RIAA. Nothing breeds attention like bad press right?
ttmmm

SampsonSimpson - thanks for the correction. Still, it must be wrong to sue a minor? I mean, non-emaciated minors can't get in to debt! They can't have credit cards, they can't go to jail, they can't do anything! It's mad.

lesser of two evils"We want $150,000 per song for damages but we will gladly settle for a cool $2000...now there isnt that a bargain? see we arent the three headed hydra that we are made out to be" This is like comedy

Remye :
Great idea my friend. Legally, such an action must be certified by a court to qualify, but like you say, the numbers are big enough, and as yet, unquantified enough, to qualify for that aspect of a class action. Lots of Jane and John Does similarly situated.

The real rub here is your cause of action. As much as we detest what they are doing, the DMCA, a legal act here in the States, passed by Congress, was bought and paid...er, I mean, duly passed by Congress. And, unfortunately, the DMCA is so wrongheaded and anti-consumer, that you would have to go WAY out of the way to prove they are abusing it.

The essential elements of such a suit would include:
1) Cause of action- what law would enable us as a class, to see damages from the RIAA?
2) Damages- how would you prove up damages and what damages might there be for anyone who has not been sued?
3) Determination of the court of proper jurisdiction.

Of these, the hardest to determine would be, quite simply, what have they done which would be wrong under the laws of the USA, and what damages have we as a class sustained proximately caused by their actions. And, did they have any legal duty to us as a class.

I'm not saying there is no class action there, but it's gonna take some serious thinking and legal searching to find what duty that they owed us.
~code

Code...
What about the false implications conveyed by the so-called amnesty program? False and misleading information, leading people into a trap, is illegal. Also, the information being spewed about amnesty by the RIAA is akin to extortion.
Also, the reference to file sharing as an illegal activity goes without merit. If this activity were illegal then, the RIAA would be filing criminal charges. They have not done so because, it is not illegal in the eyes of the law.

i dont live in the us and am really hoping this little bombshell duzn't land on mi doorstep

i dont live in the us and am really hoping this little bombshell duzn't land on mi doorstep
I cant remember the last time i baught a cd coz i listen to moozic channels most of the time, hoo needs to buy em when u can watch em on tv and it also costs the record companies to do taht, What an addedbonus

I knew you'd be good for the details Code. I had thought of two of those three, and cause was the biggest problem. I guess it'll be up to the ones that got subpoena'd(sic) to carry that torch, seeing as I've not seen anything yet.
I had figured that we could sue under RICO or even (far fetched as it might seem) under the laws governing computer privacy, but it kept coming back to causation. "How do we KNOW the RIAA got into our computers" (using we as ambigiously as possible). Even if proven, we'd have to prove it for each and every person involved.
Thanks for putting it all back down in a workable, thinkable model. I knew there would be quite a few hurdles, and you (as always) served as a good sounding board for the idea.
btw.. how was your trip *smirk*
ttmmm